An Elected President for the European
Union

The position of the President of the European Commission is largely
comparable to that of a national head of government, if one ignores that, in
contrast to the British Prime Minister or the German Chancellor, he or she can,
at best, only informally influence the composition of the government. As
primus inter pares, the President is largely entrusted with executive
tasks. The present European institutional structures do not have a special
political office for the purely representative functions, as exercised by the
German President, for example. However, in the institutional reform,
establishing such an office for the European President would make a great deal
of sense. The European President would primarily have a symbolic, integrating
function. He or she would represent the Union to the world and could play an
important political role as an internal arbitrator and intermediary between
different member states or between individual member states and the European
institutions.

This would further stimulate the integration process in an expanded
Europe. Additionally, in the long run an important secondary effect could be
connected with the establishment of such an office, if political incentives
were correspondingly determined: namely, the creation of a European political
party system. For this to occur, first of all, it is crucial that the European
President be elected by the European Parliament. The member states would hardly
accept such a procedure for selecting the President of the Commission, who has
a very influential political position. But the direct election of a President
of the European Union, who would primarily have representative rather than
executive functions, could serve as a lever to set competition among European
political parties in motion. It would provide an incentive for the development
of parties active throughout Europe (for instance, from the presently existing
parties in the European Parliament), which would have to co-operate in choosing
common election candidates for the Presidential office. European elections
would thus no longer be determined by competition between national parties, but
by the election campaign of the European party alliance.

It cannot be expected that a functional European political party system
be developed overnight. But developing one is of crucial importance for
European integration. To deal with the lack of democratic legitimation in
Europe, functional institutions are needed to aggregate, articulate, and
integrate political interests. So in the long run, it is well conceivable that
the Commission will be elected by the European Parliament. The European
political party system is crucial for the democratisation of the Union. In
reforming the existing institutional structures, promoting the development of
such a party system should thus be a central concern.